Lenses for canon 450D?

[The_One]

Hello everyone,
I recently bought Canon 450D with 18-55mm lens kit. So far I am very impressed with the performance and would love to explore more into lenses. This is all very new to me hence I am looking for some suggestions / recommendations.

I am looking at buying a Telephoto Zoom lens, a Macro lens and Wide-Angle lens. I read somewhere that I can use the telephoto lens as Wide-angle as well, is it true or would I need a wide-angle lens for landscape photos?

Since I am new I was thinking to buy the entry level lenses first before moving on to more expensive high-end lenses. I wonder if that is how most people do it? Are the entry level lenses really worth spending money on or it is just another way of companies making money of newbies like me?

I would highly appreciate any comments

Regards

 

[prodigy2k7]

What is your budget? How many lenses do you want?
EF 70-200mm F/4 ($560 USD)
EXCELLENT!!! Lens..
EF 50mm F/1.4 USM - or F/1.8 USM

 

[Overread]

hmm one tip = if you plan on making this a good hobby and you can envision yourself spending out on the better glass later == then don't bother with the lower end stuff now
Granted better kit won't make better photos - that is up to the operator of the kit (you) but better kit does allow better capture than lower end kit.
An idea of budget, but also of importance - you are after 3 very differnet lens and even at the cheap end this will cost - might be more wise to focus on a good copy of one and then move on to the next - it also takes time toget used to a lens and get the best out of it,
For the telephoto being used for landscapes this can be done if you own something like photoshop elements 6 and a tripod - you set the camera on the tripod - take a shot of a section of the landscape, then you pan the view to the left or right to get the next section of the landscape (making sure to have at least 20% of the shot overlapping with the previous area) and takethe shot. You repeat tilll you have the whole scene and then you can use the panorama feature of the editing program to stitch the shots together (hence why you need the overlap).
Of course this is slower than using a proper wideange lens, but it can do for a good while

 

[Village Idiot]

Hello everyone,
I recently bought Canon 450D with 18-55mm lens kit. So far I am very impressed with the performance and would love to explore more into lenses. This is all very new to me hence I am looking for some suggestions / recommendations.

I am looking at buying a Telephoto Zoom lens, a Macro lens and Wide-Angle lens. I read somewhere that I can use the telephoto lens as Wide-angle as well, is it true or would I need a wide-angle lens for landscape photos?

Since I am new I was thinking to buy the entry level lenses first before moving on to more expensive high-end lenses. I wonder if that is how most people do it? Are the entry level lenses really worth spending money on or it is just another way of companies making money of newbies like me?

I would highly appreciate any comments

Regards

There's a couple lower priced lenses that are worth it. Other than that though, take Overread's advice. That and learn about lighting after you get the basics down. You can put together a full lighting kit for the price of a decent lens ($500ish) and that will do a lot more for your photography than a $1500 lens will.

The three you'll probably want to look at for what you were asking are the 70-200 f/4 as mentioned below, the 50mm f/2.8 mentioned, and the Sigma 10-20mm.

And buy used. Go to www.photography-on-the.net/forum and check out their classifieds section. There's a ton of memebers there and you can find some really good deals.

 

[The_One]

Hello Friends,
Thanks a lot for taking time to reply to my post. I really appreciate every comment. Considering the suggestions my intention now is to buy a Micro and Ultra-Wide lens to capture pictures flowers & bugs and Landscapes.

For Micro I am considering Canon EF 100mm / Sigma 150mm / Tamron 90mm. I would appreciate if someone can provide feedback on these lenses. Would a Canon 70-200mm / Tamron 18-250mm Lens do the same or better job? None of the lens have IS feature, is this really a big concern? Would tripod be absolutely essential?

Sigma website says that 150mm lens can also be 1.4x / 2x Tele-converter lens, which makes a 210mm F4 AF tele-macro lens or a 300mm F5.6 MF tele-macro lens respectively. Does anyone know what exactly they mean?

For UltraWide I am considering Canon 10-22mm / Sigma 10-20mm / Tamron 11-18mm. Sigma lens seems a better option price and feature wise. I would love to know everyone's thoughts on it. I don't think I've use for Telephoto lens for now, but perhaps in future I can consider Sigma 50-500mm.

Thanks again
The_One

 

[maulrat]

Everyone I have met that has owned a Sigma 10-20mm says that this is one of their all time favorite lenses. I would really consider buying this for your first lens unless your happy with your 29-88mm kit lens.

I have the 50mm f1.8 on my 400D and I absolutely love it. So fast and so clean, clean. This was my first lens so I really can't compare it to the kit lens.

 

[Overread]

Well first of the wide angles - the sigma and canon have been compared a lot and the result is that the sigma gives the same quality of photo for half the price - go for the Sigma lens (its one I am also aiming to get)

As for the macro if you are shooting insects then a key part is your working distance - the longer it is the further away you have to be to shoot at full sized macro whilst the smaller the closer you have to be - and of course the closer you are the more chance there is of spooking the insect. The factor that determines your working distance is your focal length - the longer the focal length the longer the working distace - so the canon 100mm has a shorter working distance than the sigma 150mm. That said 100mm is the bread and butter insect focal length - shorter is not impossible, but harder for certain whilst longer helps.

Now as to the lenses you list the canon 100mm is a very popular lens and works very well (infact all the macro prime lenses are very sharp and well made so you really cannot go wrong). The canon has a disadvantage in that it comes without a lens hood or a tripod collar - both of which are important. The hood is almost a certain need and has a lot of uses (besides keeping light controled its great for keeping things from accidentally scraping the front of the glass); The tripod collar is not as essential, but my experiences are that it does help with the overall stability of a lens setup on a tripod over using the conection on the base of a camera.
The sigma 150mm does ship with both of these attachments (and is the same price as a canon 100mm with both hood and collar ordered) and has a longer working distance than the canon. It also has teleconverter compatability (sigma teleconverters) which is important since teleconverter boosts your focal length either by 1.4times or 2times (double the focal length) - which of course means a longer working distance, but also affects you background blur effect, since the longer the focal length of a lens the more blur you get in background which is important for reaching clear backgrounds to subjects; further magnification of the macro is inreased when you use a teleconverter - which lets you get even closer shots of the bugs. However they do make 2 things harder - for starters the longer focal length will reduce your depth of field (the area of a shot in focus) and in addition it will also reduce your plane of focus - in the case of a 2 times this is very small indeed and can make handheld macro very hard.
A 1.4times can be used easily with no reduction in overall photo quality - whilst a 2times is trickier since your plane of focus and depth of field are so small - I have shot handheld with this combo and it is hard - I would rate it as a tripod macro tool more than a handheld simply because of its limited focus plane - though you can still have fun trying .

All the macro lenses you list are well suited to handheld macro work. Myself I went for the sigma 150mm as well as a set of teleconverters and its been a fantastic lens to work with


Further as for the lack of IS in the lenses its not essential at all. Landscape shots really should be done on tripod anyway (timer or remote release for added reduction in shake - also look up mirror lockup - a camera feature - which also helps reduce camera shake) so you don't have to worry about a longer shutter speed.
Macro work is nearly always done without auto focusing and without IS (infact only one lens had shake reduction and at the macro settings its not even adviced that its used - the nikon 105mm mirco (they call macro mirco do nikon people)). So the lack of IS is not limiting in any way. I would suggest a good flash (430 or idealy a 580M2) is a very important investment when doing macro work, though if you cannot afford one yet then by all means use your popup - but make sure to put a few folds of toiletpaper held over the flash (some elastic bands) to diffuse the light otherwise it will be harsh on your shots. A dedicated flash head will also need a diffusier - lumiquest softbox is a wonder - though again toilet paper can work very well as you wait for funds to build up

 

[The_One]

Hello Everyone,

Thanks again for your insightful comments. I've decided to go for:

1. Sigma Lens 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC HSM
2. Sigma Lens MACRO 105mm F2.8 EX DG

I can post some images from the lenses if someone wish to see. I've another quick questions regarding filters. I see that there a lot different types of filters and I am seeking some guidance on how to select the best one.

First of all I've noticed that both Sigma 105mm and Canon 18-55mm have 58mm Filter length and Sigma 10-20mm has 77mm Filter Length. Do you recommend buying filters for both sizes or just one? I understand it depends on what sort of filter for what lens and that's where my next questions is.

So far I've found people using UV filter as Protector Filter. Would you recommend the same? How about a Polarized Filter? Sample pics from it does look good. Would a Polarized Filter would be a better choice for Sigma 10-20mm? There is also a Hybrid between UV and Polarized Filter, is it any good?

Is there any filter that can be helpful for Macro photography? Can any of the filter effects be done in Photoshop or Lightroom?

Looking forward to your comments.

Regards
The_One

 

[Overread]

two good choices - so onto filters:

UV - their use as a protector is debatable, some people always use them to protect the front of their lenses other do not - its really your call though there are some situations where they are prudant to use - such as at the beach with salt water spray, in the woods with small branches which might poke right past the lens hood and scratch the surface of the glass.
If you do decied to go for them then the best thing is to get the best filter you can buy, don't go cheap since as you are adding in more glass to the setup you want that glass to be good and not to degrade you overall quality of shot - most people see only tiny loss of detail with UV filters and that takes pixel study to see.

As for macro, I can't think of any filter that is good, many, like ND grad and polarizers do cut out light entering the camera by a significant amount, at macro this is a problem since light is very key for the small apertures you will end up using as well as the fact that much of the time you will need a fast shutter speed to get the shot (especially with bugs) - so whilst interesting to play with I would not consider them essential.

A polarizer is often used for landscape work since it can help preseve and prevent the sky from blowing out - though I will let another expand on polarizers.

Filter effects, light as colours, can now be done in photoshop, so most people using digital don't bother with them anymore, they take a normal shot and then apply the filter in editing - which gives them the abilty to have an original version of the shot to use as well as the option of adding - say - a yellow warming filter.

Also, I strongly advise considering a proper flash head, like a canon speedlight 430 or 580M2 - they are a very sound investment for much of photography and a key aid in macro work. They are much for flexable and powerful than the popup flash and allow for even smaller apertures (larger f numbers) which leads to getting more insect in focus. The 430 version is a good powerful flash and is the cheaper of the two - the 580M2 is more expensive, but holds the advantages of more power and also being a master flash unit (that means if you ever get any more flashes, like 430s, they can be triggored by the 580)